


The Call of the Void

by skiesoverarkanis



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: A lot of TIE fighter pilot feelings, Cannibalizing the EU as a tribute, Gen, He just loves that TIE fighter okay, M/M, OMC/First Order Special Forces TIE fighter, Poe Dameron/Finn (background) - Freeform, TIE fighter pilots having a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 14:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7056808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiesoverarkanis/pseuds/skiesoverarkanis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The call of the void knew no creed, did not discriminate by philosophy or political affiliation. The pull to the stars cared not for your species, the planet of your birth, nor even the contents of your heart. To a pilot, their hearts were all made of the same stuff anyhow: daring, adrenaline, and a yearning for freedom so deep it could only be satisfied by the endless ocean of the galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Call of the Void

The call of the void knew no creed, did not discriminate by philosophy or political affiliation. The pull to the stars cared not for your species, the planet of your birth, nor even the contents of your heart. To a pilot, their hearts were all made of the same stuff anyhow: daring, adrenaline, and a yearning for freedom so deep it could only be satisfied by the endless ocean of the galaxy.

The aft hangar on the _Finalizer_ was quieter than usual. It was fourth shift, and most of the troopers, pilots, and officers were on their night cycle. Soren Fisk sat on top of the curving hatch of his TIE fighter, his black helmet, striped with the red bands of the Special Forces, resting on his lap. He wore the black coverall of his flight suit, but it was unzipped to his waist, and his bare arms met the cool recycled air of the closed hangar without protest. His chest plate and arm guards lay discarded behind him. The great silver wings of his starfighter’s twin solar collection arrays rose up on either side of him, blocking most of the hangar from view. Like this, he felt as though it might be just the two of them, alone in the galaxy.

The other pilots shook off their post-flight nerves by drinking, gambling, or taking each other to bed, but Soren preferred to be here, in the hangar. Just him and their ship, carefully and methodically checking over each component, tuning up and cleaning as needed, calibrating instrumentation and shields, repairing minor damage or wear. She had taken a hit today, one that had been mitigated by her deflector shields but nonetheless had left a streak of soot across the expanse of one delicate vertical wing. Soren had spent the last few hours scrubbing the debris from the panel until it shone. Now, sweaty and exhausted, his adrenaline long drained, he was content to just sit here, because it was good to be with her.

It was frowned upon for the pilots to give their fighters names other than the numbered designations they had been assigned by the manufacturer, deemed unnecessarily personal and thus to be discouraged, but he and Jagged had named her the _Elegy_. In Soren’s opinion, she was the most beautiful ship in the galaxy – elegant and strong, graceful and deadly, and he loved her with a fierce pride he could barely articulate, let alone voice.

He leaned back on his hands, tipping his head back to the ceiling of the hangar, and closed his eyes. He could sleep here, he realised suddenly, absurdly.

“Thought I’d find you here.” He turned to the low, teasing voice of his co-pilot and flight partner, and threw her a crooked smile over his shoulder. Jagged Fel was also wearing her flight suit, her helmet tucked under her arm and her thick black hair loose around her shoulders. She smiled, and her teeth were very white in the dim lights of the hangar’s artificial night cycle. “You weren’t at the party,” she said, mounting the stairs up to their TIE’s hatch and swinging her legs over the dome to sit beside him. “Dray made jet juice.” When this got no response, she elbowed him in the ribs. “Tans was there.”

Soren shrugged, lacing his fingers over top of the helmet in his lap. “Wasn’t really in the mood for celebrating.”

“Hey.” She shoved him with her shoulder, another grin lifting her face. “Nobody died today. It was a good day. I’d say that’s cause for celebration, wouldn’t you?”

He snorted. Unlike Soren, Jagged did prefer to relax with drink, cards, or sex – preferably all three, if she could swing it. She rarely needed an excuse to celebrate. “Then why aren’t you with the rest of them? And why are you still wearing your flight suit?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

He was silent for a long time, frowning out at the contingent of starfighters docked across the hangar. “It was a close one today,” he said at last. “They clipped her wing. If her shields hadn’t been at full capacity, it might have ripped a hole through the array.”

Jagged curled one arm around her own black and red striped helmet, crossing her long legs at the ankles. Her other hand stroked idly down the curve of the ship’s round cockpit beneath them. The striking crimson of the port side was like a splash of blood beneath their feet. “But they were,” she said.

He nodded. “She did good.”

Her face was sober now, and her deep brown eyes had taken on a faraway glaze. He knew she was thinking of how in the old days, before the addition of the deflector shields boasted by the new TIE models they both so adored, they would not have been so lucky. Imperial TIE pilots had gotten by on nothing but luck and skill and nerve, unaided by the technology they now benefitted from. He knew she was thinking of her father.

Jagged’s father had been one of the best TIE fighter pilots the Empire had ever produced, and had flown hundreds of missions before retiring after the Battle of Endor. At least, that was how the official story went. Soren knew the truth, of course – that Soontir Fel, his reputation so fearsome he had been known as the Baron of the Empire, had defected to the New Republic after that last battle. And it had been there that he had passed his lifelong love of the chase onto his only daughter.

Soren also knew that Jagged herself could not have cared less about politics, about the corruption of the New Republic that General Hux was always harping on about in his speeches, or the First Order’s inevitable rise to galactic power. All she wanted was the controls of a TIE fighter beneath her hands, the exhilaration of flight. Soren suspected if the Republic had been flying TIEs instead, that’s where she would be. Hells, if the _Resistance_ had been flying TIEs that’s where she’d be. And if he were honest with himself, which he tried not to be, he might be too.

Beside him, Jagged balanced her helmet on her thighs and stretched her arms above her head. When she brought them down, she slid one across his shoulders, leaning closer with a conspiratorial glint in her eyes. “You wanna go for a ride?” She tapped the viewport of their fighter beneath them with the back of her heel.

Soren’s eyes widened, although the swoop of adrenaline in his belly had already decided the answer for him. Then he licked his lips with a grimace. “We aren’t authorized for departure. If the general-”

 _“Fuck_ the general. Check this.” She reached into the pocket of her flight suit and pulled out a small personal data device. She held it between two fingers, its readout, displaying a 16-digit code, throwing a blood-red glow across her gloved fingers. “Thanisson’s a terrible Sabacc player. And I, dear brother in arms, am a very good one. He needed to barter with _something_ after his credits ran out.” She waggled her eyebrows with an irresistible smile, waving the authorization code in his face. That was another thing she had inherited from her father – a charm you couldn’t refuse and never wanted to. “What do you say? Let’s go out. Just the three of us.”

An answering grin spread across his face, and he was already shrugging on the shoulders of his flight suit, his helmet shoved over his tousled hair, before she could even flip on her own helmet.

 

~

 

With Jagged at his back, the hum of _Elegy’s_ ion reactor beneath him, and the galaxy laid out before them, Soren Fisk knew freedom. And there he tasted power, greater even than the Emperor’s.

This was what General Hux’s ruthless training programs and drills could not touch, not without sacrificing the stuff that made his pilots what they were at their core. Maybe the stormtroopers could be molded into perfect, obedient little soldiers, who lived and died for the First Order and its ideals. But there was a secret that every pilot kept, from Imperial to Rebel Alliance, Resistance to First Order, one that they each understood, unspoken threads between them like the invisible lines between constellations. And that was that a pilot’s deepest loyalty was always to their ship. The ship was their duty, their devotion, their first love. The void of space was their home, the stars their family. And there were no politics, no ideals, and no chain of command, which could truly supersede it.

Oh, they would die for the First Order no doubt, but with neither the fervour nor reflexive obedience demanded of the ground troops. This was what they feared, those in command who did not understand and could only hope to control it.

And Soren thought, as he sailed through the stars with his thoughts so intertwined with both Jagged’s and _Elegy’s_ that they might have been extensions of one will, that perhaps they were right to be afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for indulging my TIE pilot feelings! I just have a lot of thoughts about flying starfighters.
> 
> Jagged Fel is actually the son of Soontir Fel in the EU, but seeing as that isn't canon anymore, I thought I would borrow his name as a tribute. ;)


End file.
